Turn Social Intelligence

into Smart
Crisis Prevention
Tip Sheet
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
Crisis management has completely
changed in less than a decade. In 2003,
a crisis happened when the press
got wind of something that hurt your
company. It lived in headlines, sound
bites and the odd blog or two. It took
hours to build and days to control.
Today, a crisis moves at the speed of
social media. It lives in Facebook, Twitter
and YouTube. And it lives in real-time.
However, social media gives marketing
and PR opportunities you didnt have
a decade ago: the ability to change the
conversation, before you have to deal
with a crisis. In 2013, the combination of
the right approach and the right social
listening and engagement tools can help
you diffuse a potential crisis before it
hits mainstream media. You can even
turn a crisis into an opportunity and end
up with more fans and loyal customers
than before, along with a stronger, more
positive brand reputation. How do you
do this? The following tips will show you
how to plan ahead, and leverage social
media tools to stave off any negative
chatter before it grows into a crisis.
Recognize Before You Have to Apologize:
Social Media for Crisis Management
Put this under glass and break in case
of emergency.
First, identify who will handle specic tasks.
Your community manager and social staff
will probably do most of the frontline work.
However, this plan should involve every
department in your organizationbecause
a crisis can affect any level. A series of
negative tweets can come after bad customer
service. A recall or technical malfunction can
get bloggers talking. A controversial statement
from an executive can show up on YouTube.
Your social media crisis plan should include:
Policy detailing what constitutes a social
media crisis
Crisis handling procedure, including:
> The crisis communication team
memberswho is responsible for
handling the crisis on the front lines,
and who has decision-making authority
> A decision ow chart with assigned
responsibilities
> The triage protocol, showing what
requires escalation, and to whom
> Documentation and analysis forms,
and check list for post-crisis follow-up
Your organizations social media policy
Message templates (for brand voice and
basic content points only see Tip 5: Mind
Your Message)
Plans for your website and any dark sites
or microsites that you may activate to
quickly spread messaging or blog responses
Your plan should be readily accessible to each
member of your crisis team, and they should
be trained in how to follow it. Having this plan
in place can save you valuable time once the
negative sentiment starts to build. The more
prepared you are, the more active you can be.
If youre playing catch up or implementing
damage control, it might be too late.
Plan Ahead
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
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Use social media monitoring to stay on top
of what people say about you, your brand,
your executives and your products. Its
important to know that the warning signs
of a potential crisis probably wont show
up as a spike in the volume of conversation,
but as a shift in sentiment.
Use sentiment and text analytics to generate
a real-time word cloud so you can see how
the terms that people use on social channels
change from day to day.
Mondays word cloud could be business as
usual. If Tuesdays word cloud suddenly starts
showing some negative terms, investigate
immediately. Now is your opportunity to act
before a dip in sentiment becomes a crisis.
Also, be sure to monitor conversations that
are not directly about your brand. Track your
competitors, their product names, as well as
terms that relate to your industry as a whole.
If an issue threatens your entire industry, you
can position your organization as a leader by
acting rst.
Listen Carefully
Track your competitors, their
product names, as well as terms that
relate to your industry as a whole.
Word Cloud
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
You found a potential problem; now its time
to deal with it and change the conversation.
You dont need to reach out to a rolodex
full of media contacts. Social media tools
will show you exactly who is tweeting and
sharing negative things about your company.
Take a deep dive to nd the biggest online
inuencers and the most popular and
retweeted articles.
From there, plan an appropriate response.
(Learn more about how to do this in Tip 5:
Mind Your Message.) Make sure to apologize
for and solve any customer service problems
before doing any other damage control.
Publically engage the people driving the
trafc against you, as well as other, more
sympathetic inuencers. Strive to develop
strong relationships with your key social
media inuencers, fans and clients, before
a crisis occurs, so they are primed to serve
as your advocates when the time comes.
Most important, continue to rely on
sentiment and text analytics to make sure
youre changing the conversation and your
efforts pay off.
Target the Influencers Who
Will Change the Conversation
Publically engage the people driving
the trafc against you, as well as
other, more sympathetic inuencers.
TIP
Sysomos Heartbeat Top Inuencers Tab
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
Dont underreact and dont overreact.
Overreacting can hurt you by driving up
the volume of mentions and causing a spike,
which brings more attention to your issue
than would have occurred organically. If your
organization isnt active on social channels
prior to this incident, you run the risk of a
volume spike.
Watch the volume of social messages as you
respond. The goal is to bring your sentiment
back to where it was before, without bringing
up your total volume.
Keep your volume down, while improving
your sentiment, by spending the appropriate
amount of time reaching out to each respective
inuencer. For example, if Mashable.com
and the Hufngton Post have both published
articles about you, be mindful of the trafc
each is generating. Dont spend equal effort
reacting to both, if Mashables article is getting
retweeted 5 times more often.
Also, stay on the appropriate medium. If this
negative chatter happens on Twitter, respond
on Twitterdont drive up your Facebook
mentions by responding to something with
no traction in that space.
React Appropriately
Spike Analysis
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
When planning for a crisis, prepare some
message templates to use for responses
and posts. Having some pre-prepared
statements or boilerplate information will
save you a lot of time and can help you
keep a consistent message and tone across
channels and responders.
Also, keep your tone and messaging
appropriate for what youre facing. If youve
been on the receiving end of some satirical
comments, dont be afraid to respond with
a bit of humor of your own. In more serious
situations, keep your message simple,
apologetic and genuine when you explain
how youre xing the issue.
If you do your job well, you might generate
more positive visibility for your organization
than any paid advertising could achieve.
Mind Your Message
Case Study: Sir Patrick Stewart Vs. Time Warner Cable
The adage used to say that satised customers praise you
to 2-3 people, while dissatised ones rant to 8-10 people.
Twitter has since destroyed that ratio, and its easy for
one person to instantly and repeatedly share his or her
dissatisfaction with thousands of others (even hundreds
of thousands of others)
In the fall of 2012, Sir Patrick Stewart, the wildly popular
star of the Star Trek and X-Men franchises who has more
than 220,000 Twitter followers, took to the Twitterstream
to complain about his new cable subscription.
Time Warner responded in a reasonable amount of time,
but their reply seemed to be one step behind.
The next day, Time Warner publically reached out to
Stewart again. Unfortunately for them, he was clearly
still frustrated and in no mood for their cute reply.
Their mistake was choosing the wrong tone to address
Stewart, while never actually apologizing or attempting
to x his issue. Which resulted in:
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
Case Study: O2 Deals with Outrage over an Outage
When youre one of Englands biggest wireless providers,
nothing can create a crisis faster than mass downtime.
When a huge network outage caused thousands of irate
O2, GiffGaff and Tesco Mobile customers to take their
complaints to Twitter, O2 responded in ne form.
What set them apart is that they replied to customer
complaints on an individual basiseven those that were
tasteless and offensive. More important, they were tactful,
down-to-earth and apologetic while doing so.
This was obviously a daunting undertaking, given
the sheer number of tweets they had to address. At
some points they were sending 10 tweets per minute.
However, their efforts paid off as they turned a crisis
into an opportunity to show their customers (and their
competitors customers) that they care.
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Turn Social Intelligence into Smart Crisis Prevention
Sysomos brings business intelligence to social media, providing instant and unlimited access to
all social media conversations to quickly see whats happening, why its happening, and whos
driving the conversations.
Through the use of contextual text analytics and data mining technology, Sysomos collects data
from blogs, Twitter, social networks, forums, video sites and major news sources.
Our products give you the ability to quickly discover the tone of the conversations and identify
sentiment by gender, age and location.
PHONE
1.866.483.3338
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contact@sysomos.com
MEDIA INQUIRIES
media@sysomos.com
WEBSITE
sysomos.com
BLOG
blog.sysomos.com
TWITTER
@sysomos
FACEBOOK
facebook.com/sysomos
About Sysomos
The speed and depth of social media means a crisis can
explode and spread like wildre before your eyes. You can
watch your brand come under attack and your companys
reputation take a beating as negative conversations spread
across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in a matter of hours.
Or, you can identify crises as they happen and meet them
head-on. You can change the conversation and diffuse
an issue right away. The smart and engaged company can
actually turn a potential nightmare into an opportunity to
shine. Gracefully handling a small issue (before it blows up)
can establish your organization as proactive, accessible and
in touch with your customers.
The Bottom Line